


A Pirate Who Keeps Sunday School

by derryderrydown



Category: Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:New Year Resolutions 2007, recipient:Shona
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryderrydown/pseuds/derryderrydown





	A Pirate Who Keeps Sunday School

"Well, jibbooms and bobstays," Nancy muttered to herself, as she eyed the palliasses on the hotel room floor. No, on the _cabin_ floor. Because for all this looked like a four-storey hotel in Dundee, it was technically a ship.

And that was the sort of pretend that Nancy was good at.

"I hear the beds will be here in a week or so," Geraldine Miller said hesitantly.

"Bunks," Nancy said.

"Sorry?" Sally Price blinked her guileless blue eyes.

"We're to call them bunks," Nancy said. She prodded the closest palliasse with the toe of her neat, black shoe. "It's always possible we're meant to call these bunks, too, but I wouldn't swear to it."

"Is that one of those naval terms we've got to learn?" Alice Shaw asked. "Do you already know them?"

"Some of them," Nancy admitted.

"Hurrah!" Geraldine said, and tossed her suitcase onto the floor. "We've all got a secret weapon! Well done, Ruth!"

And, for the first time in several years, Nancy felt completely comfortable saying, "Actually, everybody calls me Nancy."

&lt;hr&gt;

Uniform was doled out quickly and without concern for size, and it was a relief to discover that Alice had been a seamstress in a fashion house before joining up.

"I'm not doing it all," she said initially but, plied with sufficient chocolate and promises of future favours, she gave in and the girls of Cabin 35 had the most stylish uniforms Dundee had ever seen.

Unfortunately, she couldn't do anything about the too-stiff collars that rubbed their necks raw, or the shoes that Nancy swore had been made for elephants. In time, her skin toughened or the collar softened and she learned where to pad her shoes. "But," she wrote to Peggy, "the shoes are still the worst part of the whole thing. Even worse than the cockroaches that get into the food. After all, I'm sure pirates ate plenty of cockroaches but they didn't wear horrible, horrible shoes that made their feet bleed."

&lt;hr&gt;

"Left, left, left," Chief Wren Ogilvy bellowed across the parade ground and Nancy struggled to keep her feet from tangling as Ogilvy made them skip to change legs.

"Left turn!" And Nancy pulled Geraldine - now known as Dusty, in accordance with invariable Navy tradition - in the right direction.

"She enjoys this too much," Dusty gasped.

"She'll hear you," Nancy warned, but it was Nancy's name that Ogilvy cried with sadistic delight.

"Blackett! If you've still got breath for talking, you're not working hard enough! Twice around the parade ground, double time. Move!"

Just imagine, Nancy told herself, that you're racing the Swallows to buried treasure. And it was easier when she imagined she was racing John and Titty; easier still when she realised that John would have gone through exactly the same training on his way to his sub-lieutenant's commission.

And she wasn't going to let even an imaginary Swallow beat her.

&lt;hr&gt;

"Do you think," Nancy said, as they patrolled the building on nightly fire watch duty, "we'll ever get to see a ship?"

"Oh, heaven knows," Sally said, crunching cockroaches underfoot without even pulling a face. "I'd rather not - I want a nice, cushy posting in London, thank you very much. Do you still want to go to sea? Really?"

"It's why I joined the Wrens," Nancy said.

"I joined because they have the nicest uniform," Sally said serenely. "I got seasick in a rowing boat in Regents Park."

And Nancy had to laugh because she mightn't understand Sally in the slightest but it was impossible to dislike her.

&lt;hr&gt;

"Ah, Blackett." Ogilvy shuffled through the papers on her desk. "You've been assigned to train as a wireless telegraphist."

"Oh," Nancy said, and she couldn't hide her disappointment.

"It's a good position," Ogilvy said, and the hint of humanity encouraged Nancy in her objections.

"I'd applied for the mailboats," she ventured. "I have a lot of experience of sailing, you see. I thought I'd be most useful there."

"Not much sailing nowadays, I'm afraid," Ogilvy said. "And you did far too well on the intelligence test for that assignment."

"Well, that's a nuisance."

"You really had your heart set on working with ships, didn't you?" Ogilvy said.

"I did, rather," Nancy said. "It's why I joined the Wrens."

Ogilvy shuffled through her papers again and tapped her pen against her lower lip, leaving a smudge of ink. "How about maintenance?"

"Maintenance?" Nancy said doubtfully.

"Doesn't sound promising, I know, but it might be just what you're after." Ogilvy scratched out something on Nancy's form, wrote something else in, and then put it to one side. "You're to go on the London train. You'll be met at Euston."

&lt;hr&gt;

"What did you get?" Dusty demanded.

"Maintenance," Nancy said.

"Maintenance?" Sally asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"Ogilvy said it would suit me," Nancy said, and it sounded rather ominous put like that.

"It's probably something utterly hellish and she's determined to make your life miserable even after you've left here," Dusty said. "I'm to be a driver and Alice a steward. How about you, Sally?"

"Special operations," Sally said. "I've no idea what that is but it's in London, so I'm happy."

&lt;hr&gt;

It was 2pm when Sally and Nancy staggered onto the platform at Euston, twenty hours after being locked into their compartment in Glasgow.

Third Officer Pertwee was waiting on the platform with a list of names.

"Ordinary Wren Price," Sally said.

Pertwee scanned down her list, then checked off Sally's name. "Wait here. You'll be taken in a group."

"Ordinary Wren Blackett," Nancy said, expecting the same treatment, but Pertwee nearly dropped her clipboard.

"Good god, you made it!" she said, and she grabbed Nancy's wrist and ran.

Nancy managed a glance back at Sally, waving goodbye, and then she had to concentrate on keeping up with Pertwee while still keeping hold of her kitbag.

"Your train's about to leave," Pertwee panted. "Run, you stupid girl!"

"The tracks were bombed at Crewe!" Nancy gasped. "I'm not late on purp-"

"Shut up and run!"

And Nancy found herself and her kitbag flung into the last compartment of the last carriage of the departing train, with a cry of, "Get off at Great Yarmouth!"

&lt;hr&gt;

This time, she was met by a petty officer wren and, with five other girls, was herded into a crocodile and marched to a hotel on the seafront. "Do you have any idea what maintenance is?" she asked the tall girl next to her.

"Not a clue," the girl announced cheerfully. "But it can't be worse than being a secretary."

Nancy's eyes widened in horror. "How utterly horrible!"

"I know! I said, 'I joined the Wrens to get away from typing and shorthand and all that stuff and nonsense,'" the girl continued. "And told them they could jolly well stuff it if they wanted me to be some officer's typist. So they sent me here."

"Well," Nancy said, "at least it's by the sea. I did rather a lot of sailing round here as a kid."

"Oh, you sail! Hurrah!" The girl's dark eyes lit up. "I was starting to think I was the only person in the Wrens who actually liked boats. I'm Caroline, by the way. Caro Mathers. I do hope we'll be chums."

"I rather think we shall."

&lt;hr&gt;

They were woken early the next morning, handed a pair of bell-bottoms and a boiler suit each and given ten minutes to get dressed. "It's definitely going to be more interesting than being a secretary," Caro said, "if they've got us in these. Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" Nancy echoed, and then they were hurtling downstairs to Chief Petty Wren Thexton's angry cries.

The march to the base gave Nancy time to look around and recognise the familiar landmarks. There was the shop where Captain Flint had treated them all to ices, although now only one cracked window, criss-crossed with a latticework of sticky tape, remained, the others having been replaced by boards with the inevitable 'Open as Usual' painted on them. And just down there was the spot where Roger had been careless with the tiller and scraped Swallow's new paint, much to John's disappointment.

And now there was HMS Midge, larger than the name suggested and home to a flotilla of gun boats and torpedo boats.

"Blackett and Mathers, with me," CPW Thexton said, and swung easily down the ladder and into the engine room of one of the torpedo boats.

Nancy followed and was hit by a wave of greasy heat. The boat must have just come in for the engines to be so hot, she realised, and looked up to find three men, stripped to the waist, staring at them.

"Blackett, Mathers," CPW Thexton said. "You'll be working with Leading Seaman Tucker." The greasiest man, his curly hair plastered to his scalp with sweat, looked at her with horror.

"Jesus," Tucker said, when CPW Thexton had trotted smartly back up the ladder. "We ask for engineers and they send us two bloody chits!"

Nancy straightened her back. "Well then," she said. "You'd better teach us until we _are_ engineers. Because you're jolly well stuck with us."

&lt;hr&gt;

Three months later, Nancy and Caro stood on deck as the torpedo boat nosed out of the harbour for trials of her newly-repaired engine.

"I don't think," Caro said, just loud enough for Nancy to hear her over the rhythmic thud of the engine, "that I'll be going back to my desk in Birmingham, once the war's over."

"Let's turn pirate instead," Nancy said, and she couldn't keep her wild grin under control.

"Shiver my timbers! What a marvellous idea."

And the two pirates looked up at the white ensign and laughed.


End file.
